Captain and I traveled this past weekend with our good friends, Kevin & Carol, to Odessa, Missouri for a long weekend getaway.
For those of you who--like me--did not know where Odessa was, it is about 45 minutes east of Kansas City. Nice little town with a fantastic family diner called JJ's Family Diner. I would highly recommend it if you are ever in the area.
Let me back up and give a back story here. Normally we take a long weekend with Kevin and Carol during the summer to a state park but were not able to do so this past summer. Instead, I got on the VRBO website and looked for reasonably priced rentals near Kansas City.
I happened upon a listing for a cute little cabin on a private pond with inviting ourdoor spaces and room to sleep 4 people. Awesome sauce, I grabbed it up.
Here's where I am going to do a public service announcement.
For those of us who use VRBO and similar sites: READ.THE.FINE.PRINT. And read any available reviews.
For the record...I failed on both of those points and relied strictly on the available images on the listing. I mean, come on, isn't this cute?!
We headed out Friday morning and had an easy drive down I-35 around Kansas City and east on I-70. There was the little glitch of slow-and-go traffic due to construction, but we weren't in a big hurry so we didn't stress.
We found our exit off of I-70 and followed the instructions of Ms. GPS toward our getaway spot. We started to get concerned when we had to "turn off the paved road."
We really got concerned when we left the unpaved road for the driveway of our destination, and the gaurdrails over the very large culvert were made of scrap 2x4s, and the entire right railing was missing.
When we started passing abandoned RVs and trailer houses with windows missing, we could hear faint notes from banjos.
When we arrived at our "cabin," we realized that we were probably within spitting distance of at least one meth lab.
Upon unlocking the door of the rental and entering, we discovered that (1) the second sleeping area required climbing a ladder--not steps; ladder--and crawling into a loft area with a mattress on the floor and (2) the murphy bed on the "main floor" took up all of the non-kitchen area, and there was no available seating.
I was so traumatized by now that I needed the bathroom.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
The shower was in a corner with the plastic shower floor insert, corrugated metal walls, and heat tape plugged in with an extension cord. Ummm...metal, moisture, and electricity....NOPE, not doing that!
The toilet was another creature altogether. I lifted the lid and rather than a porcelain bowl, there was a lining that looked like aluminum foil. Well, that was interesting. But, I have men in my life who have been ice fishing and told stories about frozen porta potties that have plastic bags that must be removed and discarded after use. Okay, gross...but I'm no sissy.
However, when I went to remove the aluminum foil type lining...I couldn't. The foil lining just kept pulling out and extending. So I did what any bamboozled Midwestern white old lady would do.
I just twisted the liner to enclose what was in there and moved on with my life and joined my travel companions on the little covered deck outside. There was a large glass of wine waiting for me, thank goodness!
Several minutes later, I received an in-app VRBO message from the host with a YouTube how-to video for the toilet. Apparently it is something called a dry flush toilet, and I'll just let y'all look up that video for yourselves. Suffice to say, if you push the right button, the machine will do the twisting for you. However, you will never look at Jiffy Pop Popcorn the same way.
By this time, I was ready for some sleep. We went back into the cabin and I faced...The Ladder. Folks, I'm not good with heights at the best of times, and these were far from the best of times.
Up the ladder I went, one painful rung at a time. When I got as high as I could by holding onto the ladder itself, I needed to somehow get myself into the loft which is now level with my chest and no handholds that I could find. Turns out, the handle was over my right shoulder. Oh goody.
I get my right hand on the handle and still have my left hand on the top of the ladder frame....now what? I had to let go of the top of the ladder and twist my upper body to get my left hand around the frame of the loft and pull myself up and into this space.
Think obese harbor seal launching itself onto a dock, and you'll have an accuragte picture of what just happened.
I was done. I put my glasses and my phone on the window sill and flopped face first onto the pillow. I don't remember anything after that.
Until.
4:00 a.m., and I woke up realizing I need to pee. I asked myself if I could wait and not risk using the ladder and the weird toilet in the wee hours of the morning in the dark.
4:07 a.m. after much internal debate, I had to take my chances on the ladder and scary facilities. For the record, an obese harbor seal is much more agile getting off the dock than I was getting onto and down the ladder. Just saying.
4:10 a.m. much internal debate on if it's time to just stay up and scroll through Facebook or go back up the ladder for the potential of more sleep. Ask anyone who knows and loves me, and they will tell you I am not a morning person. I went back up the ladder for more sleep.
Stayed tuned for Day 2 of our Adventures in the Land of Banjos!
